Year: 2003

Amandla means “power” in the Xhosa language, and when people talk about the power of music, this is it, right here: the power to sustain the spirit of a people through a long and harsh period of oppression, and the power to eventually help throw over the oppressors. Documentarian Lee Hirsch makes an extraordinary feature … more…

Here’s a tasty delicacy for Valentine’s Day: Frank Patterson’s daintily turned black comedy about bigotry, gossip, and murder in a small Florida town. February 14 is only a few days away, and florist Rose (Leslie France), a timid little mouse of a thing with her pastel cardigans and floral skirts and doormat demeanor, is unable … more…

It’s sorta sad that *Shanghai Noon* is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen — it’s not like I haven’t seen funny movies like Monty Python’s stuff and *Airplane!* and *Glitter.* But what can I say? I’m a sucker for Jackie, I’m a sucker to Owen, and I’m really, really a sucker for cute, funny, talented guys who take self-deprecation to new heights (or would that be new lows?). The Bias Meter is supposed to alert you to these sorts of propensities and strange proclivities, for which I do not apologize.

Don’t you just hate people? Sure, once in a while they give us ‘Ode to Joy’ or the moon landing or Hershey’s Kisses or *The Simpsons,* but usually it’s reality TV and spray cheese and genocide and sequels to wars. And movies like *How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days* and *Deliver Us from Eva.* So maybe it’s not a coincidence that these movies are populated by people like the people who make you say things like ‘Don’t you just hate people?’: petty, mean-spirited, selfish, inconsiderate, and all-about miserable excuses for human beings.

For a movie that’s all about sex, *The Guru* is awfully sweet. I wish that was as redundant as saying, ‘For a movie that’s all about terrorists bend on destroying the world and the half-crazed rogue cop intent on stopping them, *Armageddon Now* is awfully violent.’ It should be that unnecessary. But alas, movies of late just manage to make sex dirty, a mechanical activity that horny teens do in between getting killed or horny twentysomethings do in order to avoid engaging in meaningful conversation with a fellow human being.

Terry Gilliam has made of career of tilting at the windmills of the film industry, so it’s hardly surprising to learn that he’s been trying to give his own spin to Cervantes’ Man of La Mancha for years. In the summer of 2000, his dream was about to become a reality… or at least that … more…

Oh, the curse of being a starlet trying to follow up on a delightful breakout film. The world fell in love, blah blah blah, with Audrey Tautou as the sweetly fantastical Amelie, but here she’s Michèle, a far less charming young romantic — in fact, she’s so tedious and so caught up in her own … more…

Shockingly violent and surprisingly funny, this French thriller about women exacting all manner of vengeance on the men in their lives — who are abusive on all kinds of scales — is a delicious antidote to moviedom’s typical characterization of women as simpering victims. The unlikely team of Hélène (Catherine Frot: La Nouvelle Eve), ignored … more…

You can tell that *Final Destination* is a fantasy, because it starts out at the airport — at John F. Kennedy International Airport, actually — and we see a flight actually get into the air 30 seconds after the plane pulls back from the jetway and the captain tells the flight attendants to ‘prepare for departure.’ It’s rainy night at one of the world’s busiest airports, but there’s no waiting in line on the tarmac, listening to the captain tell you that ‘we’re about twelfth in line for takeoff and expect to be in the air in about fifteen minutes’; there’s no need to return to the gate to refuel when fifteen minutes turns into an hour. Just whoosh: and we’re on our way.